


Thor-  Without Her

by Skellyagogo



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Depression, F/M, Female reader insert, Heartbreak, Loss, Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:36:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21994600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skellyagogo/pseuds/Skellyagogo
Kudos: 4





	Thor-  Without Her

  


They’d come so far from saving his people from Hela, from fighting Thanos and the loss of Loki over the Tesseract. Loki sacrificed himself, goaded Thanos to kill him instead of her because Loki knew Thor could get over the loss of him, but never her. Loki knew better than any that the loss of Y/n would have driven his brother to the brink of insanity and beyond. Even as much as Loki despised Thor sometimes, that wasn’t something he would have ever wished upon his brother even on his worst of days.

Thor and Y/n’s strange trip through space, fighting against each other and the Hulk on Sakaar. Then there was Earth and warning everyone over the incoming battle with Thanos. Even in all of that he held her tight and close afraid to let her go. He never let her leave his side without a kiss or a playful smile in case anything would have happened to either of them. Then at least they’d have the memory of that kiss, laugh or smile. His people had been settled near Tonsberg establishing New Asgard and safe or so he believed. Thor finally thought he could breathe if only for a moment and enjoy a normal life with Y/n but then there was War and the Snap.

Thor could barely see her on the battlefield in Wakanda after they’d landed with Rocket and Groot, but he could hear her fierce war cry. Sometimes it even made his blood go cold hearing it, especially coming from such a Migardian. She was taller than most, but nowhere near his stature, a quality, he found attractive. Y/n was the furthest thing from a waif, she could handle her own, but then Thanos snapped his fingers and he watched her tearfully fading away.

She covered her stomach in a wide panic, she cried out for Thor, something she’d never done in a battle before. He was too late, she faded before he could get near her. Nothing but a pile of ash on the cold hard ground where she stood. His love was gone, faded away into nothingness. They all grieved and mourned their friends and loved ones, but what hit him the worst was how easily all his hope had disappeared.

Thor was wracked with guilt and regret. Thoughts filled his waking mind, all the could haves, the should haves, and the would have been. He grew to despise himself over not staying by her side. Never once had they drifted more than a few yards apart from each other in a fight, but that battle was different. She has herded away from him on purpose he was sure of it. Why didn’t he find her sooner, keep her close, fight back to back like every other time? Why did he stubbornly thing he could end it all on his own? Why did he have to be so prideful?

His nearly sleepless nights filled with the sight of her panicked eyes, and the scream of his name as it ripped itself from her lips across the field. The way she clutched at her stomach and the sudden falling of tears from those brilliant eyes. He couldn’t bear to think of it, he wouldn’t entertain the thought that she’d been carrying his child. He never would have allowed her on the battlefield if that’d been true. In his nightmares, he bellowed out in rage and agony seeing her turn to ash. The wind swirling and turning what was left of her into the shape of a wailing child with its arms stretched outward towards him.

He hid in shame, no longer feeling like a hero. He was unworthy, a failure who’d lost everything that had ever meant anything to him at all. It was all his fault, his pride and ego to be the best and the strongest had done nothing but ensure everything he loved was taken away. He drank himself into a stupor to keep the thoughts at bay. He kept on drinking until he couldn’t picture her clearly anymore, nothing more than a blurry figure. He drank until he could no longer see her smile when he closed his eyes, or hear her laughter floating in the breeze of an open window. He drank himself into what the mortals called rock bottom and he kept himself there. Thor truly and honestly believed that he was responsible for her death and he was no longer deserving of her memory.

He wasn’t good enough to remember the way she pulled the blankets over her head in the morning in denial that it was time to wake up. How soft her bare skin felt against him in those chilly early morning hours. He’d slowly pull the blanket away from her forcing her to cuddle closer to him until she crawled on top of him and buried her face in his neck. The deep hearty laughter he tried to keep in as she attempted to pull his arms around her to keep her warm. He couldn’t stand the tormented guilt on those rare sober and lucid occasions when he could swear he felt the soft warmth of her lips on his.

He’d cry and rage, bellow out his fury at the loss of her into the star-filled skies. Cursing all those who’d come before him paving his way to this moment. He cursed the Gods, the heavens and the stars themselves. Those stupid stars weren’t even the same, not without her. Anything that once gave him joy was nothing more than a constant reminder of her absence. Food filled some of the emptiness that consumed him, but it was never enough. He shut out the whole world, shut himself away from it all because even the tiniest thing would somehow make her ghost appear before him and that he couldn’t handle.

When Hulk and Rocket had shown up on his doorstep trying to give him hope, he rambled drunkenly about not caring. He kept telling them he wasn’t that guy anymore, he wasn’t the hero. He was happy and content in his life with Korg and playing Fortnite, but when Hulk mentioned her name everything changed. Thor himself hadn’t uttered her name out loud in years, he couldn’t bring himself to let the sound of her sultry name cross his tongue. His ears were undeserving of hearing it. They watched in shock as Thor shattered the bottle he was drinking from at mention of her name.

“Uh, we don’t say that name here,” Korg interjected preparing for the worst as he’d seen it all from Thor over these tormented years.

The last time anyone had said her name aloud in the village many years ago, Thor went into a fit of rage and demolished his first home to the ground. Panting and seething, the knuckles on his fists soaked in his blood. He crumbled to his knees surrounded by the chaos of his anger, the guilt-filled rage that seemed to flow through him with every breath. No matter what he did, the pain and guilt of her loss never lessened, never went away. It clung to him refusing to let go.

He was promised a fighting chance to get her back, and he took it but he had a contingency plan. If it failed and he could never see her again, then he was willing to end it all. He’d give up his partial immortality and be mortal so he could wither away and maybe on some slim chance he’d see her again on the other side.

The team and their sly comments and jokes about his new look. How there was nothing coursing through him but Cheez Wiz, Funyuns and beer. The way he let himself go went in one ear and lodged somewhere inside his brain. Where there was once praise from his teammates were now jokes at his expense. He did his best to ignore the snide commentary but it still got to him. Worse was if this plan getting the stones worked, would Y/n still love him like this? Would she take one look at him and walk away? Would she despise the man he’d become?

Walking through the Compound, seeing the places that held memories of them together tore at the shattered mess of what was once his heart. A few times he found himself wandering towards their old room. He’d get to the door, a shaky hand over the doorknob, but the next step never came. The courage to open that door, to see those moments from a time too long ago so wonderful they had to be dreams, that courage didn’t exist to him anymore. The earthy flowery scent of hers was strong behind that wooden door in front of him. It was taunting him in such a haunting way. It was a slap in the face every time he inhaled a breath.

Was that silly little worn teddy bear she hugged tightly when he wasn’t there still sitting on the window sill behind their bed? Were her sketches and drawings still littered on the floor around her favorite armchair that looked out the window at the world beyond? Did the gilded mirror that Frigga gift her still hang on the wall? Or the daggers Loki conjured especially for her birthday, were they still laying on her desk ready to be polished? Did the book of Asgard and its History and Tales that Odin bequeathed her still rest on the nightstand on her side of the bed ready for her to pick up where she left off?

He swore to himself right there, he’d only step foot in this room again if he got her back. They’d pack up everything inside of it and he’d take her home, to New Asgard. No more fighting, no more wars, he’d shower her with passion and love and never let her go not even for a second, but if the plan failed. Then he’d give up what was left of his life to join her in the afterlife because life without her wasn’t a life at all.

********

Thor’s journey with Rocket on the hunt for the Aether brought him home to Asgard of the past. It was all too much, an ‘emotional overlord’ as Y/n would have said. Seeing the very place he’d grown up, the spot Loki first stabbed him as kids. The gardens he took Y/n to see her first visit. The balcony with a view of all Asgard and the Bi-frost he proposed to her on. He wept behind a pillar, his agony heavily filled the air. Frigga’s voice echoed from somewhere not far off bidding her servents good-day. Thor wept into his hands, the memories of Y/n accosting him so fast he felt as if the sheer memory of her was crushing him.

“What troubles you, my son?” Frigga’s soothing voice filled his ears as she gazed upon him.

He jerked away from her touch trying to hide himself from her, but he knew it was too late. Fumbling with the robe he had draped himself in he tried to cover his shame, the way he let himself go. He was no longer the muscular man in the prime of his life, and it shamed him. Self-esteem had exited his world years ago. He had nothing, was nothing, deserved nothing and here he was standing in front of his mother. One more thing that he loved and adored that had been taken from him.

“Thor, what is the matter, dear boy?” She stood before him offering the same soft smile she used to give him as a child, the palm of her hand resting on his cheek as she watched his eyes filled with an ocean of waves ready to crest over.

“Nothing… I-I… I’m fine,” he studdered. He wanted so desperately to seek her guidance but he wasn’t supposed to interfere with the past.

“You’re not the Thor I know at all, are you?” Her eyes squinted in curiosity as she smiled at him.

“Yes I am,” he rambled not even fooling himself.

“The Future has not been kind to you has it?” There was that soothing tone that only she possessed.

“Who… who said I was from the future?” He tried to smile, but it faltered seeing her before him.

“I was raised by witches boy, I see with more than my eyes, you know that.” Her eyes darted over his face, her head tilted and she frowned. “Y/n?” That was all it took to send him over the edge again. Frigga held him closely as he sobbed in her arms.

“I failed… I failed her. I wasn’t… I wasn’t what I was supposed to be. I wasn’t the hero and she paid for that,” his voice cracked choking on his own words. The weight of admitting it out in the open felt like it was grinding him into a pulpy mess.

“Everyone fails are who they are supposed to be Thor. A measure of a person, of a hero, is how well they succeed at who they are. You were and still are the greatest love of each other’s lives and if you can do something to show that, then by the Gods shine.” She held his face in her hands offering a comforting smile that only a mother could. Soothing his heart and mind trying to take that pain away.

He didn’t remember what pushed him to do it, but he had to know. Maybe it was Rocket nagging him that they had to go or maybe it was Frigga’s words. His arm stretched out, his hand opened muttering ‘please be worthy’ over and over. He felt the slap of Mjornlr’s leather-covered handle in his palm.

“I’M STILL WORTHY!” He bellowed aloud excitedly.

*********

The battle was a blur, especially for him being on the frontlines. He’d almost been cut in half by his own ax, watched his comrades fall around him and witnessed Steve wielding Mjolnir. When it seemed that all was lost, a hoard of allies had come flooding from portals all over the field, but he never heard her. He scanned the grounds up and down and even from the air, but never once did he see nor hear her fierce yell. If there had been anything left in him perhaps he would have felt something other than the stagnant numbness over her loss. All he could do was shake it off and soldier on.

Captain Marvel had taken the Gauntlet and snapped her fingers, knowing she was the only one to survive that force of power. They all stood around mourning the ones they lost but relished at the end of the Mad Titan. Seeing the exhausted but gleeful faces of those that’d been gone for five long years. There wasn’t anything left in Thor to force a smile, no happy feeling at the victory of the battle. There was nothing to smile about. Not seeing Tony and Pepper hug each other tightly overjoyed to be going home to their child. All the loved ones grabbing hold to their lost ones, tears of joy dripped to the blood-soaked ground, but where was she? Where was his Y/n in all of this? Was she truly lost and awaiting him in Valhalla along with Frigga, Odin, and Loki?

The dust had settled, fires burnt themselves out, the sunlight finally able to peek through the clouds and shown down on what was once the Compound. He could see the wizard Strange approaching from his side. Thor watched him in broken confusion as he created a portal mere yard in front of him. It dawned on all of them now seeing Thor’s face who they hadn’t seen in all the fighting and panic. Heads turning side to side sweeping over the faces of the dead, but her face wasn’t among them. Their saddened eyes watched Thor in guilt.

Y/n tumbled out of the portal, shrieking obscenities that carried across the field making even the most hardened warrior blush. Her uniform dirtied with blood and caked in Wakandan dirt. Her gun raised in one hand, her battle ax swinging in the other ready to launch itself through the air at an enemy. She spotted Strange and stalked towards him angrily, Thor found himself stumbling struggling to keep himself up. Steve and Bucky tried their best to keep him upright. He couldn’t believe it was her, she was alive and as feisty as in his dreams.

“Fuck you Strange!” She tapped the edge of her ax to his chest growling. “You know damn well I can fight! My condition shouldn’t matter, how dare you keep me from this!” Her eyes darted to the sides seeing herself surrounded by her friends, her team, her family.

She turned around taking in the sight of them all, all those eyes on her only for her own to stop when they landed on Thor and all that rage disappeared. Thor’s face contorted into a mirage of emotions. His mouth twitched and trembled unable to believe she was really there in front of him, looking exactly as she did five years ago. His telltale chunk of blond hair braided into hers, a sign of love and deep sacred trust. He closed his eyes but it didn’t matter, he felt the tears fall anyhow.

Her lock of hair had been shaved off his head on Sakaar, another in a long line of regrets even if there wasn’t anything he could have done about it. That was a symbol of her love, faith, and devotion to him and it was taken away against his will. A thought crossed his mind that maybe if he’d had that after she’d been snapped, perhaps those five years would have been different.

“I-I… I know I don’t look… ” he paced nervously and ashamed of himself in front of her trying to avoid her eyes. Too afraid of what he’d see in them. His massive arms kept crossing over his chest only to swing away and clasp in front of his stomach as if that would hide anything. He’d become emotional in his time away from her and could feel the imminent storm of emotions building inside.

“HAIR!” She squealed blissfully dropping her weapons at her feet and launching herself at him.

Thor barely had enough time to catch her. Her thighs tightened and squeezed around his pudgy waistline, he knew she couldn’t cross her ankles behind him as she used to so he held on to her. His hands resting comfortingly around the roundness of her rump as if they hadn’t been devoid of the way she felt these past five years. His eyes widened in surprise seeing the gentle smile on her face as her fingers glided over the delicate braid in his bread. The dance of her fingers as she wound them through the rest of his hair scratching at his scalp the way she used to during those long nights in bed he never wanted to end.

He watched in overdue euphoria seeing her pull a knife out of her boot and up to her hair cutting off a long lock, trimming a strip of leather off her vest. The overwhelming admiration threatening to spill out watching her weave and braid it into his. That empty feeling that’d been weighing him down these long years slowly felt as if it were melting away.

“There’s my Thor.” The achingly sweet smile that spread over her mouth as she stared into his face left him in tears.

Too long, too long since he felt her warmth, heard her voice. He buried his face in her neck unafraid of the cries that left him. Her arms wrapped around his neck and that voice he tried so hard to forget filling every fiber of his being.

“Shh, it’s okay. I’m here,” she whispered in his ear. Her own tears beginning to fall mingling in his hair and their armor. Her hold was aggressive and strong and he craved it, every molecule of his body needing to feel hers.

He fell to his knees unable to handle the reality of her truly, honestly holding him again. The touch of her soft skin on his, that floral earthy scent of his filling his nose. Choking sobs cut through the silence that surrounded them. Her feet slid to the ground as she stood, Thor’s arms held tight around her thighs, his forehead resting gently against her stomach. The last five years of his life, all the doubts, the grief, regret and guilt at trying to forget her flashed over him like crashing waves.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. He wasn’t thinking of what his friends would say over his outburst, but Y/n could see the sadness in their eyes as they watched Thor. “I tried… but … it hurt too much. I couldn’t… I didn’t… ”

Y/n was crying as furiously as he was, her own tears dotting his armor in shiny flecks of wetness. The pull of his hair was too hard to resist. Thor thought it was that silly bear that she sought comfort in but it was really the silky feel of his hair and how mindlessly sifting her fingers through it could calm her very soul. One of her hands rested around his neck assuring him that she was there and not going anywhere again. The other kept winding its way through his braids and knots. There was no denying in the way he was acting, the vulnerability he was exuding, that his time was beyond rough without her. For her, it was a mere handful of minutes being gone, but Thor was all alone when he needed her the most.

“I want to go home,” she hummed pulling his head up to gaze in his eyes. “Let’s go home.”

He turned his head surveying the scene around them, the Compound in complete ruins. The grounds littered in blood and the debris of war. Carnage and chaos of broken armor, weapons, and ships scattered over the land. Somewhere under all of that possibly were her belongings, her treasures and yet she spoke of going home? Their home was a crumpled ruin all around them.

“But…” His head slowly turned back her way, his eyes drowning in hesitation.

“New Asgard is our home,” she smiled at him so sweetly it was a blessing and a curse. He was blessed to be able to see it again but cursed himself for ever trying to forget it.

That first night at home in New Asgard, she sat him under the stars on the grassy knoll behind their cottage curled up in his lap with her arms wrapped around his neck. Neither of them could stop smiling like fools at each other. 

“I need to tell you something.” Her fingers twirling around the braid on his head that held both of theirs. “I tried to tell you before Wakanda, but everything happened so fast.”

“What is it, Love?” His deep voice vibrated through the both of them while his thumb stroked circles onto the small of her back.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but…” She held his bearded face within her palms. “You… you’re going to be a father.”

Her eyes kept darting between his watching those words sink in. It was hard to read his expression at first, his face was blank. Those shiny bright eyes of his scanning every inch of her face and flickered downward towards her belly. Why didn’t he notice it before? His mind racing backward in time and little by little he saw it. The subtle changes in what she ate, the excess tiredness and by the time they made it to Wakanda the slight roundness that seemed to appear overnight.

“You’re with child? My child?” There was a dazed look in his eyes. Strange knew and kept her out of the fight with Thanos on purpose.

It didn’t take but a few moments before the elated crinkles appeared around his gleaming eyes as he smiled. He cupped her face in his colossal hands, thumbs sweeping over her cheeks. The tears that fled her eyes soaked into his flesh as she shook her head grinning. He peppered her with so many kisses she started to giggle at the tickle of his beard. On instinct he rested a hand over her stomach, thumb sweeping side to side as he began to regale fantastic tales of Asgard and it’s people to his tiny child growing inside his beloved. Halfway through a tale of himself and the Warriors Three he stopped and grinned at Y/n. He began telling his little one the story of how he met Y/n and how fierce she became. 

*******

It took him a week to straighten the mess he’d created in the cottage. Y/n repeatedly told him he had nothing to worry about and gladly went about helping him readying their home. She offered him all the smiles and passionate kisses he could handle as she helped him clean and repair. The Asgardians reveled in the news and soon gifts began to arrive at their door. It wasn’t even a month after the news that a handcrafted cradle wound up at the door. Elaborate carvings on the sides of Thor and Y/n in a mighty battle.

Thor did everything in his power to keep her from harm whether it be the coffee table she still couldn’t pass by without hitting her shin or when asked too many questions about her pregnancy by the women in the village while getting supplies. He held her hand afraid to let go, even in his sleep he held a firm grip. When his hand wasn’t in hers it was resting protectively over her protruding belly. He marveled in her voracious appetite as his child grew within, Volstagg would have gone hungry around her. A joke she herself pointed out and laughed wholeheartedly about. Thor himself had a hard time accepting her figure was anything like his, he kept reassuring her she was beautiful, he never wanted her to feel as he did about himself.

Week after week her stomach grew larger. At one point he grew alarmed that something was wrong, he’d never seen a woman with child so gigantic. Y/n argued that everything was alright and she felt fine, that all pregnancies were different for each woman. He insisted Y/n visit with a healer in the village and nearly fainted when they heard the news. She wasn’t just carrying one heir, but two, a girl and a boy. He was stunned but overjoyed, couldn’t help himself and ran around the village letting everyone know bellowing out joyfully at the top of his lungs.

“Natalia Frigga Thordottir and Loki HeimdallThorson.” She spoke casually on their walk back to their cottage.

The sudden randomness of her words stopped him short. He stood still holding her hand in his and took a deep breath surveying the land around them. The mountains, the forest and the ocean behind them. Y/n watched curiously as those names bounced around in his head behind wide eyes before he grinned ear to ear nodding in agreement. The discussion of names was over before it even officially began.

“I only hope they bring honor to their namesakes,” he chuckled shaking his head briefly lost in memories past. “Without the stabbings of course. Though I do wonder, are we setting ourselves up for trouble naming the little one after Loki?” He smirked glancing at her seeing all the stories she’d been told of their childhood rushing through her mind.

“Possible, then again, I’d like to think we’d be better than our own parents and learn from their mistakes,” she smiled in response tugging his hand to keep walking home.

********

He held her hand and kept her attention away from the pain through the long hours of labor. The smile never left his face as he wiped the sweat from her brow, encouraging words in a constant flow from his mouth. The sweet promises of everything under the sun from ponies to jewels to the mightiest of weapons if his little ones would 'please stop hurting your mother’. Thirty-two long hours later the wailing of two strong sets of lungs could be heard throughout the village and beyond.

Thor couldn’t stop himself from counting every finger and toe over and over. Y/n watched exhausted from their bed as Thor and his massively strong hands swaddled each of their children delicately in a blanket. They appeared so tiny in his arms as he rocked them to sleep.

“You shall both rule,” he whispered softly. “Both of you will be equal in everything, neither will be more loved than the other and if you should ever doubt that you are loved, we’ll prove over and over.”

“Thor,” Y/n hummed sleepily. “They’re barely an hour old, it’s a little early for them to rule don’t you think?”

“Nonsense,” he grinned proudly at Y/n. “They already rule my heart along with their mother.”

“Are you happy?” She asked him with a comforting smile patting the space beside her for him to sit with their little ones.

“There are moments I still fear I’m dreaming and I’m afraid I’ll wake up and you won’t be there, but yes, I am happier than I ever thought I could be.” He leaned over kissing her forehead.

There were enough heroes in the world now, enough defenders of the people and the Nine Realms to allow Thor and Y/n rest, to raise their children without having to jet off and save the world. For the first time in his life, Thor no longer felt the call to war, the itch to prove himself in battle. The battle raising his children to be honest, and brave and fierce in the eyes of evil was enough. He watched Y/n as she played with their young children in the grassy knoll behind they cottage nad knew that without her he wasn’t whole. Without them, he was but a man without a purpose. 


End file.
